


No Better Reason

by thegrumblingirl



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Feelings Realization, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-05-17 15:20:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14834793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegrumblingirl/pseuds/thegrumblingirl
Summary: Since then, they’ve settled into something Thomas wants to call longing but cannot, for it comes part and parcel with the knowledge that nothing can ever come of it. There are rules, and implications.Sometimes, their glances linger, and when they take the railcar from Curnow’s office to the Tower to meet with Corvo, Thomas fancies he could take his hand and not be refused.Update Aug 19: now with added prompt fill (Chapter 2).Update Dec 23: another prompt fill (Chapter 3).





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> By popular delight, these two are getting their own little tale of love. Just a quick one-shot I wrote for breakfast, but if you'd like to see more of them — like, reacting to events within assassins don't take sides — let me know.
> 
> Soundtrack: [Vesper.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upamEEDq2XM&list=PLY1Uwm5rZ4zOVXyBOsEZlCATCUdaVFWrN&index=37)

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a handsome Watch Captain of means and opportunity must be in want of a wife, Thomas thinks to himself as he prepares for his meeting with Curnow and Corvo.

He’s been part of the Watch now for six months now, and Curnow’s right hand for four. It’s funny how that always seems to be where he finds himself. He’s Curnow’s man rather than Corvo’s, now, as Corvo isn’t willing to fill that empty spot at his shoulder — might never be willing yet, if Daud does not return. So Thomas reports to them both, and if he prefers one or the other to give him orders, he’ll never breathe a word of it. He does… _prefer_ one of them in ways he knows are wholly unwise, however.

The Whalers are no strangers to their master — their teacher — making them work for recognition, for contracts, for responsibility. Or, in Curnow’s case, for being called by their names. Thomas _thinks_ he knows why: the Whalers used to wear masks, were unrecognisable to everyone except each other. As Whalers, they’d been Daud’s people, his shadows, but not themselves. They don’t wear these masks anymore now, they are unto the world as they are, and they must prove themselves in it with their best-kept secret stripped from them. It used to be their introductions were their knives at someone’s throat and the coin they collected for the deed. Now, they stand before the citizens of Dunwall with their faces and names no longer hidden. For that, too, Curnow has been making them work.

Thomas was the first of them.

“Thomas!” Curnow called one day after squad training, and Thomas turned and walked towards him before the reality of it caught up with him. He fought to keep his face impassive — unlike Rinaldo, who was standing with his back to the Captain and giving him a wink as he passed him. Spurious little shit, Daud had once called Rinaldo, and Thomas thought in that moment that the description was accurate.

And now, when Thomas thinks of Curnow, he sometimes (often) catches himself thinking of _Geoff_ , and it won’t do at all. Not least because there have been rumours, lately, of Curnow and the niece of Arnold Timsh, the old barrister. Thomas knows that Corvo has asked Curnow to keep an eye on her, as barrister Timsh used to have connections to Delilah and just about every crook in the city before he went to Coldridge for his sins. It was common knowledge, before, that Thalia had a connection with someone, an officer, who Timsh did not approve of; and the gossip mill of Dunwall’s upper echelons was nothing if not efficient.

He wants to ask him about these rumours.

He won’t.

*

‘It can’t happen,’ Thomas tells himself and anyone else who needs to hear it. Galia, who reminds him that one day one of them might go to their death and then the other will be left with nought but memories.

“And,” she says, “the way you’ve always followed Daud into every scrape, it might just be the Void for you. And Curnow isn’t the Outsider’s bloody favourite to come riding to your rescue.”

Galia’s nothing if not to the point, Thomas thinks.

Rinaldo and Rulfio tease him, nudge his shoulders, and ask if he’s bedded the handsome Captain yet.

“You can’t think he’s not interested,” Rinaldo protests. “My job is watching Emily, but even I can’t escape the way he looks at you when he thinks he’s being subtle. Which, for your information, he is not.”

And ‘not interested’ is not the problem, Thomas thinks. Another year has passed, and late evenings working in Curnow’s study have turned into sharing a bottle of Old Dunwall at the end of it — and talking. About Corvo’s obsession with finding Daud, about the Watch, about the city rebuilding after the Cure’s been found.

About… their own lives and wants, sometimes. Thomas knows now that Geoff—Curnow cannot stand Thalia Timsh and never could, and that he would not marry a noblewoman for all the coin and standing in the Empire. He looked at him oddly when he said it, and Thomas hasn’t been right since. He muttered something of his own disinclination to marry, looked away and topped up his glass. When he dared to look up again, the odd look was gone and the Captain intent on studying the contents of his own.

Since then, they’ve settled into something Thomas wants to call longing but cannot, for it comes part and parcel with the knowledge that nothing can ever come of it. There are rules, and implications.

Sometimes, their glances linger, and when they take the railcar from Curnow’s office to the Tower to meet with Corvo, Thomas fancies he could take his hand and not be refused.

But they know what is, and can’t be.

And this, between them, cannot.

*

They’re in Geoff’s office one night, glasses of whiskey between them. Daud has returned from Karnaca, from tracking down the last members of the group that had attacked Emily and Alexi. Rinaldo and Galia invited him for drinks down at the pub by the docks, but he declined. Geoff… he lost men that day, good and loyal, and Daud delivered the report of what he’s seen in Morley and Serkonos to him personally. Thomas couldn’t stay after that, had to go with Daud to the Tower to see Corvo, but he returned as soon as he could by unspoken agreement.

“Sometimes it’s still a shock to me that Daud’s come back,” Geoff says into the quiet, draining his glass but not filling it again. Instead, he turns it between his fingers. Captain Curnow is not a fidgety man, Thomas has observed. So he pays attention (as though he doesn’t always).

“I don’t think Corvo would have left the Void alone if it hadn’t given him back,” Thomas replies.

Geoff gives him a shrewd look. “Is that really what happened?” he asks.

Thomas raises his eyes to him. He’s never given him the full account of it — the choice, the waiting. The torment in Corvo’s eyes he tried so well to hide. Nor, quite, the torment of Thomas’s own heart.

He’s waited too long to answer, and Geoff looks down at his empty glass again. “No matter. He’s back, and he and Corvo… well, they seem to have finally found their stride.“

Thomas nearly smiles — if Geoff is referring to the way Corvo had embraced Daud the moment he’d stepped off the skiff at the water lock, uncaring of Thomas and Geoff’s presence, then yes.

“They’ve found happiness in each other,” he says, and ignores the ache in his chest.

Geoff surprises him, then, when he stands and moves over to the window. He looks out over the Wrenhaven. It’s always the river, Thomas thinks, that we expect to carry away our sorrows, knowing well that a fresh wave from the ocean will carry it all back to us, in time. The tide does not only reveal the truth as it leaves the shore.

“Thomas…” Geoff begins, but falters, and Thomas stands as well. Steps closer, but not close.

 _Is this it, then,_ he thinks, _is this when he tells me we must forget all this? That we lack the courage he sees in Corvo and in Daud, to make our own fortune, or even just to seek it?_

“What of our happiness?” he dares to ask. _What of my heart, and yours, and the veil that parts us_.

“I had a lover once. A soldier from Tyvia — a man. We were discovered, and I… I killed to keep the secret. I did it to protect him, and lost him in the process.” Geoff sighs. “He could never forgive me.”

Thomas waits, for a moment, trying to find the right words. “You know who I am,” he begins, stepping closer. “What I used to do. Who I did it for.”  _He acts as though this is the thing that will preclude me from ever loving him — quite as though, when I killed in the past, I had better reasons than coin and my master's orders._

Geoff looks up at him at that. “Daud.” He pauses. “Did—did you love him?”

Thomas swallows. It’s a question he’s always dreaded. To be fair, he always thought Corvo might ask it first. But it’s never been love, he thinks. Hero worship, yes, he’ll cop to that. So he says, quietly, “I adored him.”

Geoff drops his gaze again, and Thomas can’t let him.

“But not like you,” he adds. “I wanted… Daud’s pride, his trust, and for a time I was blind to his faults.”

The corner of Geoff’s mouth lifted in a infinitesimal smile. “But you’re not blind to mine, you say?”

Relieved at the quiet affection in his expression, Thomas returns the smile and takes another step closer.

“As little as you could be to mine,” he answers softly. “Or to my past.”

“I suppose you think yourself the one who should confess to me,” Geoff says then, reaching for Thomas’s hand. “But one hundred lives weigh no heavier to me than one.”

“You’re not an assassin, Geoff. You’re not a killer.”

“There would have been a way.”

“There would have been one for me,” Thomas insists. “It wouldn’t have led to coin.”

“It would have led to death,” Geoff reproaches him, tugging at him gently. Thomas goes willingly, until they’re almost toe to toe. “And that’s a thought I cannot bear.”

Thomas kisses him, then, slow and sure. Feeling Geoff’s arms wrap around him tightly, Thomas finds the answer to his question.


	2. Aurora

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompts thing... “You look beautiful/handsome in the moonlight.” for Thomas/Curnow?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> requested on tumblr

The sky during Dunwall nights was nothing like the lights he’d seen up in Tyvia – aurora, the local soldiers had called it, with awe in their voice that spoke more of respect than a simple appreciation of natural beauty; and one told him many believed it was the Void itself breaching the veil to draw colours across the sky. Searchlights from beyond, they said, souls who had not yet found rest, and perhaps never would. It had been beautiful and daunting.

Still, Geoff far preferred this Dunwall night to any spectacle; and not merely because nights in Tyvia had been miserable and cold – slightly less miserable for company, of course. But he had not returned to Tyvia since… well. Since then. And there was no company waiting there for him now.

He had just returned from a mission that had taken him to Morley. One might have called it diplomacy if Curnow had any sense for it; but to spare his nerves the Empress had dubbed it ‘reconnaissance.’ As it was, he’d spoken to Wyman’s father and some of their friends and allies concerning a recent string of protests and riots that, once again, seemed to be motivated by groups seeking independence from the Empire. Curnow was no noble, nor an official spokesman of Gristol’s government; and there had been a few members of Morley’s Parliament who’d refused to speak to him. Those who had opened their doors, however, had delivered enough viable intelligence that he had been able to return to Dunwall after two weeks with a few suggestions to pass on to Corvo and Daud.

The skiff taking him up the waterlock was steered by one of Daud’s men, Montgomery.

“They’ll be pleased to see you returned, sir,” the former Whaler told him cheerfully.

“Thank you.” He hesitated, but then asked, “Do you know, is Thomas out on patrol tonight?”

If Montgomery found the question telling, he did not let on. Instead, he said, “Far as I know not, sir. He was at the Tower this afternoon. D’you want me to have the others look for him, sir?”

“No, no, that’s fine,” Geoff assured him. “I’ll find him.”

And find him he did – in the library, poring over reports. Geoff knocked lightly on the door frame but did not wait to step closer. He’d almost reached Thomas when he looked up from his papers. Their eyes met, and Geoff fought not to lean forward but could not help the smile tugging at his lips.

“Hello.“

“You’re back.“ Thomas stood, then raised a hand as if to lay it on his chest, but then stopped – not here. They’d not yet told anyone, and even though Curnow had his suspicions as to who knew and who merely guessed; he would follow Thomas’ lead in this. Dunwall Tower had never been the place to keep secrets, unless your name was Daud. “Come on.”

Thomas led them out of the Tower and into the gardens; avoiding the path that led down towards the gazebo and turning left instead. Here, unobserved but for the muted lights in the sky, Geoff dared to draw Thomas into an embrace, to kiss him and to whisper into his ear.

“You look beautiful in the moonlight.”

Thomas smiled against his neck. “I take it you missed me?”

“I have been known to be a fool,” Curnow murmured, drawing away to look him in the eye. “But not so foolish as to forget the one I love.”


	3. Celebration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tonight, they’d celebrate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> requested on tumblr

The day had been long — as had been all days ever since a mad witch empress had taken over the throne. For months, they had done what they could to hold the city together in the face of Delilah’s indifference while Emily, Daud, and Corvo were in Karnaca, trying to set things straight. _Months_ of waking every morning, wondering whether all patrols made it back safely during the night, wondering who of Dunwall’s citizens had been taken or killed. Wondering whether the newspapers would cry out the arrest of Emily Kaldwin and her accomplices. Or their death. They’d already buried Kieron, and Thomas felt the years since Daud’s return from the Void had been kind to them. They had become unused to loss.

But now, it was done. The Empress had returned, and Thomas had felt his heart sink when he realised she, too, had been touched by the Void. Just like her fathers, she was now bound to the Outsider. His own connection to it had been severed with Corvo’s, which had left him feeling bereft in a strange and different way from having his entire world tilted off its axis, once again. There was license in it, too, to be free of the Void.

That night, Thomas stumbled into his quarters, pulling Geoff in through the door after him. There’d been a celebration, spilling out from the throne room onto the roof of the Tower. Slackjaw, ever knowing his customers, had had his boys bring whiskey, and seeing even Daud accept a glass, grimace, and call Slackjaw a filthy cutter, everyone else saw no reason to hold back. The witch was dead, and they’d survived.

_They’d survived._

Geoff crowded close, kissing him and tightening his arms around Thomas’ waist.

“You have no idea how much I want you right now,” Thomas panted when Geoff pulled back. He’d done so much to keep everyone safe, had proved himself over and over in leading Dunwall through this crisis, and so many would never know or acknowledge it. Every day, even as Thomas worried for him every time he left the Distillery District to go on patrol or negotiate with potential allies, he’d fallen deeper and deeper in love with him.

“I think I have _some idea_ ,” Geoff returned, pressing his hips against Thomas and nudging a knee between his thighs. Almost against his will, Thomas laughed, knowing that such lines were very much beneath the stoic Captain of the Watch when he was sober. He didn’t get him drunk very often.

“Only _some_?” Thomas teased, still smiling. Geoff’s eyes darkened.

“Playing coy, are we,” he murmured. His lips and then his teeth found Thomas’ neck, and a breathless laugh turned into a moan. Tonight, they’d celebrate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thomas' ultimate kink is competence....

**Author's Note:**

> a) THOMAAAAAAAS.  
> b) GEEEEOOOOOFFFF.  
> c) :'))))


End file.
